And… well, what is there to say, really? Other than that CUPE remains seemingly determined to be the stupidest, most offensive cariacature of a union possible. Really, demanding that Israelis apologize for what’s happening in Gaza right now – I don’t see how that’s any different from going up to a Muslim and demanding that they apologize for (9/11 / terrorism / oil prices / et cetera). It’s the practice of applying collective guilt to a populace, which is both morally bankrupt and completely stupid at the same time, not to mentional fundamentally irresponsible.

It’s yet another laughable attempt at public relevance from the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. Fuck them.

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There is a difference though: They are calling for a ban on Isreali academics, NOT a ban on Jewish academics. They arent looking from an apology but a change in policy, in the same way that many many institutions refused to have anything to do with South Africa as long as south africa continued Apartheid, and the same way that in several sports national teams have refused to play against Zimbabwe until Mugabe is out of power. Or politicians refusing to be photographed with the olympic torchbearer to avoid being seen to condone the chinese government despite the fact that the chinese marathon runner isnt actually influential in chinas human rights policies.

I’m not getting into the ins and outs and rights and wrongs of the whole Isreal/Palestine thing; Everyone has an opinion and no-one is going to change anyone else in the comments section of a comics blog, but *IF* your organisation believes the government of a country is doing something reprehensible, it IS a fairly common protest technique to refuse to engage with people who could (even only tangentically) be seen to represent that country.

Wow. It’s like they sat down and asked the question, “What is anti-semitism?” and just pitched ideas until they could find the most offensive action capable of hitting the mark.

Way to stick it to the Israeli hive mind guys. It’s important that we clarify that not all people born in a specific geographical location automatically agree with each other.

Of course, its funny how they didn’t institute a ban on Palestinian speakers unless said speakers “specifically condemn the rocket strikes on the West Bank and suicide bombings in general”. But demanding that every Palestinian national sign some sort of loyalty oath would be rather stupid, offensive, and demeaning.

And besides, Palestinian academics are fucking crazy, man. They’ll totally shoot a fucking rocket at you or blow you the fuck up. :-p

Or politicians refusing to be photographed with the olympic torchbearer to avoid being seen to condone the chinese government despite the fact that the chinese marathon runner isnt actually influential in chinas human rights policies.

Yes, but these are academics, not torch bearers or soccer players. If an Israeli doctor is in town to do a speaking tour on breast cancer or a civil engineer doing a bit on architectural design, and he gets a five page declaration shoved in his face with demands that he fellate the locals’ opinions on the Gaza crisis what, exactly, does the University gain from it all?

Oh, good show. Now you’ve got a blacklist of professionals and intellectuals who refuse to kiss your ring. Well done.

This isn’t a ban on Ehud Olmert or opposition to Israeli pundits on the opposite end of the issue. This is a ban entire and exclusively on a nationality. What about French speakers who are totally cool with the Israeli bombing of Gaza? Do they get a free pass? If the Australian Prime Minister shows up, do we ask his opinion, or does he get a pass too? Americans? We foot – what? $3 billion a year for this shit – and yet we can tatoo NUKE PALESTINE on our junk and be more than welcome as speakers.

It’s a stupid criterion that doesn’t get us half a tit closer to a peaceful resolution to the conflict. And the CUPE should be ashamed of itself for even mentioning the idea.

“These are academics, not torch bearers or soccer players” – So its okay to boycott soccer players, but not “academics” (A term which frankly is about as nebulous as “Scientists”. What exactly qualifies someone as an academic?)? If anything an “academic” is MORE likely to be informed on the issues, so can be held to account for their views, surely?

Personally, I’d let ’em talk. I’m all for near total freedom of speech (with yer usual “Fire in a theatre” and “If you slander/libel* you can get sued” caveats) but I’m just saying that the “CUPE” are far from the first to decide that this would be a valid and effective form of protest about a policy/government they disagree with.

As Zifnab said, I shall await the union’s demand that all the members of the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees condemn all the suicide bombings and rocket attacks.

Way to stick it to the Israeli hive mind guys. It’s important that we clarify that not all people born in a specific geographical location automatically agree with each other.

Indeed. Not all Israelis are cool with the massacre currently being perpetrated by their government and armed forces. Among the many protests around the world there was one IN Israel, 10 000 people if memory serves. And good for them.

As for the ins and outs and rights and wrongs and such, I’m not going to hesitate getting into that at all. Like Ezra Klein blogged some time after this started, if rockets are being fired at your country but not killing very many people, should you try to stop it? Sure. But you don’t have to do THIS.

Yeah, it’s bad to hold everybody of a certain nationality accountable for what that nation does, but that is not entirely dissimilar to what Israel is doing right now. They’re punishing all Gazans for the actions of a single group of militants. They’re punishing Gazans who didn’t even VOTE for Hamas (it’s not as if Hamas got 100% of the vote in that election), and they were punishing them even before the rocket attacks started by blockading Gaza.

Basically they seem to think “better to attack and cause the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians than do nothing and risk up to 10 more Israelis dying.” No. Israeli lives are not worth more than Palestinian lives.

“I’m all for near total freedom of speech (with yer usual “Fire in a theatre” and “If you slander/libel* you can get sued” caveats)”

Slander/libel (you can just call it “defamation” for short) is not a freedom of speech restriction. Legally speaking, restrictions on freedom of speech are imposed by the government; in a majority of cases, defamation suits have nothing to do with the government aside from the court acting as decision-maker.

I gotta agree with Simon on this. Demands for boycotts of and divestment from nations to protest government policies is a political tactic with a fairly established history of use, if a less established history of success.

Hey Rob Brown, what should they have done that would be effective? If your neighbor starts shooting a gun at your children but misses a lot, do you just ignore it?

I call the cops. If the cops don’t do anything, I keep my kids indoors. If it becomes a really persistent problem, I might even ask the guy shooting at my kids why he insists on doing it.

Then, if he replies, “You’ve parked your tank outside my driveway and you won’t let me get to my job. Also, last week you tried to have my house bulldozed, and the week before that you burst through my front door, shot my dog, and had three of my kids arrested for no reason” maybe I reconsider doing those things.

But if he’s just an irrational loon taking pot shots at my kids because he hats me for growing out my hair and wearing a funny skull cap, I agree. The best response is to firebomb the grocery store, the hospital, and the local mosque. Cause that’ll show him.

This is right up there with the idiots in the UMichigan TA union voting back in 1990 when Desert Storm started that they’d refuse to negotiate with the University until the U took a position against Desert Storm.

Of course, at the next meeting, the bulk of science, math, and engineering TAs who were required to join but usually ignored the union until they did something particularly stupid, showed up and reversed the decision.

Anyway, for me it comes down to this: better for ten guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to go to the gas chamber. Therefore better to do nothing about these rocket attacks than send hundreds of innocent men, women and children to their deaths.

One thing Israel might have done to prevent the rocket fire is to discuss the proposed Hamas ceasefire extension in December. Those terms were just about the same as the terms of the previous ceasefire (which of course Israel had consistently violated), which had been extremely effective.

What ChrisinMB and candlejack said. I actually choked upon reading the comment that it would be ‘better to do nothing about these rocket attacks’. What about the fact that these same rockets are themselves killing – in fact, are intentionally aimed at – innocent civilians? And the fact that Hamas is intentionally stationed and firing these rockets from civilian centers in Gaza – homes, schools, hospitals?? Not to mention the fact that the Palestinian-reported ‘civilian death tolls’ are totally unreliable – not just for the obvious reason (the source), but because a whole lot of the “terrorists/militants/whatever term you prefer” are fighting out of uniform, which makes it a lot easier to claim them as civilians after they’ve been killed.

Would you be saying that if one of the ten guilty men killed somebody you loved?

It’s not “good” but it’s better than the alternative, which is safety at any cost no matter how bloody that cost gets.

The reason it’s done is because nothing justifies the killing of an innocent person. Not even self-preservation. If it’s a choice between making society a little less safe and killing an innocent then you make society a little less safe.

What about the fact that these same rockets are themselves killing – in fact, are intentionally aimed at – innocent civilians?

Forgetting for a second that the rockets are proving to be ridiculously ineffective at killing people–I mean what are we at now, thirteen Israeli deaths if you include soldiers who went into Gaza?–you know what those civilians ought to do?

Evacuate the area. Then there wouldn’t even be a SLIM chance of them getting killed. And since Israel often tells Palestinians to do just that, to evacuate, even when there is no safe place for them to go, Israelis ought to be open to the suggestion that they move somewhere safer until conditions change.

Not to mention the fact that the Palestinian-reported ‘civilian death tolls’ are totally unreliable – not just for the obvious reason (the source), but because a whole lot of the “terrorists/militants/whatever term you prefer” are fighting out of uniform, which makes it a lot easier to claim them as civilians after they’ve been killed.

Yes, by all means rationalize. “We don’t KNOW which of the dead were civilians because all those dead bodies look alike to me…you can’t trust the numbers, they’re coming from Hamas anyway…why, I bet none of them were civilians!”

Except it isn’t just Hamas or Palestine providing these numbers. It’s the Red Cross. It’s the U.N. It’s multiple sources.

Plus, there are an awful lot of people in Gaza and guess what? Not every single one of them is a Hamas militant. So what do you think the chances are that a lot of civilians got killed, particularly when that U.N. school got hit? I’d say pretty good.

The Israeli government apparently thinks that the guaranteed safety of a handful of its citizens is worth the sacrifice of hundreds of Palestinian lives. Even if you assume that only 25% of the dead are civilians, that still means we’re creeping up on 250 dead Gazans, which means that in order to ensure the safety of 5 people Israel decided to do something that resulted in the killing of fifty times as many Gazan civilians.

Here’s a question I can answer right now. If I had a choice between accepting the chance I might die tomorrow, or having my safety totally ensured by somebody else killing fifty strangers, I would not want those fifty people killed.

And evidently at least ten thousand people in Israel, which those rockets are being fired at, agree with me.

@Rob Brown:
If Hamas is dressing its militants in civilian clothing, and stations itself among civilians, this means that it WANTS its members to be mistaken for civilians. Hamas does this intentionally in order to exploit the international outcry that inevitably results when Israel takes measures to defend itself and Palestinian civilians unfortunately get caught in the crossfire. Bleeding-heart reactions like yours play right into that. It’s Hamas that cynically uses civilians as human shields, just waiting for them to be killed, and it’s Hamas that places the value of (taking) Israeli life far higher than that of (losing) Palestinian life.

Whatever. I’m probably not going to convince you of anything, and you aren’t convincing me either. But one last thing: Saying “I’d feel the same even if a rocket could come crashing through my roof at any moment” is not only a flimsy argument, it’s hugely disrespectful to the populations of Sderot, Be’er Sheva, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and dozens of other towns in Gaza’s range. Judge the perceived human rights violations all you want (even if I don’t agree with you), but you can’t argue with the fact that until you’ve experienced it (and I hope you never do), you can’t know how you’d feel after facing a very real threat of death every day, for YEARS, inside your own home (and at school/work, and on the bus, and running errands…in short, everywhere. Look up at the ceiling now, wherever you are. There.).
Unfortunately, there are Palestinian civilians who’ve had to live with the same fear. But you simply can’t use that to gain rhetoric points in favor of one side or the other.

One thing Israel might have done to prevent the rocket fire is to discuss the proposed Hamas ceasefire extension in December. Those terms were just about the same as the terms of the previous ceasefire (which of course Israel had consistently violated), which had been extremely effective.

That would have been a good idea, Jon. It’s too bad they didn’t.

Bleeding-heart reactions like yours play right into that. It’s Hamas that cynically uses civilians as human shields, just waiting for them to be killed, and it’s Hamas that places the value of (taking) Israeli life far higher than that of (losing) Palestinian life.

So it’s not Israel’s fault at all, because there is no way they could have just ignored the rocket attacks (as they had been doing for quite some time before this, by the way), or sent in commandos as they did with Operation Entebbe, or done anything other than killing them all and letting God sort them out. Gotcha.

By the way I take “bleeding heart” as a compliment, so thank you.

But one last thing: Saying “I’d feel the same even if a rocket could come crashing through my roof at any moment” is not only a flimsy argument, it’s hugely disrespectful to the populations of Sderot, Be’er Sheva, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and dozens of other towns in Gaza’s range.

Hey, if a rocket came crashing through my roof and I lived to complain about it, guess what? I’d still be alive! That’s more than you can say for the victims of this Operation Cast Lead. And I don’t give a shit what you consider disrespectful because I’m coming to the conclusion that you’re not worthy of respect.

…you can’t know how you’d feel after facing a very real threat of death every day, for YEARS, inside your own home (and at school/work, and on the bus, and running errands…in short, everywhere.

No, I don’t know, which is why I said “I certainly hope so” when I was asked “Would you still be saying this if the rockets were aimed at you?”

I don’t know how I’d react, but I HOPE that I wouldn’t react by letting my fear or anger or panic or whatever get the better of me and fuck up my ethics to the point where I decided that the slaughter of hundreds of people I never met was worth it just to keep ME safe.

Unfortunately, there are Palestinian civilians who’ve had to live with the same fear. But you simply can’t use that to gain rhetoric points in favor of one side or the other.

Hey, how about this? Why doesn’t the IDF just launch the same rockets, exactly the same kind of rockets, at Palestine? I mean, they’re dead set on killing people and they’re not real worried about what the ratio of militants-to-civilians is, right? So why not do exactly the same thing as Hamas is doing? It would kill a lot fewer people and afterwards Israel would be able to say “we didn’t just sit there and take it, we DID something.” Because hey, you GOTTA be able to say you DID something!

For the record, in case you don’t realize it, I am being very sarcastic there and that’s not a serious suggestion. But you know what’s sad? If Israel had done that instead of what they’re doing now then the death toll would be a hell of a lot smaller and Israel would have had a lot less blood on its hands.

And make no mistake pal, that blood is on Israel’s hands. One of the commenters at Pandagon summed it up like this:

“That’s just an excuse, though. ‘You should blame Hamas.’ The Israelis are in charge of their weapons and actions. However, they’re not paying the price in lives—the Palestinians are. Basically they’re telling the Palestinians, ‘Look what you made us do.’ ”

So, in your view, there is no such thing as a good war–a justifiable war–because it’s impossible to have a war without civilian casualities. People who want to do violence should just be allowed to do so, and the people who don’t want to live with it should just move away, rather than risk innocent lives.

I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, but that’s what I’m hearing, so I just want to check if that’s really what you mean.

So, in your view, there is no such thing as a good war–a justifiable war–because it’s impossible to have a war without civilian casualities. People who want to do violence should just be allowed to do so, and the people who don’t want to live with it should just move away, rather than risk innocent lives.

The war against the Nazis was a justifiable war because of what they were doing, because despite the cost in lives, more lives would have been lost if they’d been allowed to continue with both the Holocaust and with the conquest of Europe.

That doesn’t justify things like the bombing of Dresden, which was not necessary and was a pretty deplorable act, but even so WWII is my idea of a war that needed to be fought.

This? This is the opposite. This is a case where going to war results in MORE lives lost, not less.

If scores of Israelis were dying as a result of these rocket attacks, I’d agree that something absolutely had to be done and just digging in and weathering it wasn’t an option. But at the time the decision was made to steamroll Gaza, the death toll from those rockets was in the single digits. As for any property damage or psychological trauma resulting from having rockets being shot into your neighborhood, that’s not something that should be casually dismissed but it’s still a lot less serious than losing a limb or losing your life, and that is what is happening to Gazans who have had nothing to do with Hamas.

In addition, I just read this post earlier. Here’s what I feel is the most relevant part of it:

Hamas’s election was perfectly legitimate; the reasons for it are actually well known, and are that Hamas was actually looking after the people in their area while Fatah was pocketing the aid cash and acting like Israel’s (and America’s) puppet. People who do right by you, versus people who are blatantly oppressing you — who do you vote for?

There’s no question that Hamas was ready to grow up and become a responsible party; it had already expressed willingness to respect Israel, if still refusing to recognize Israel, supposing basic human rights and the 1967 boundaries were respected.

Let me state that again, clearly. Hamas was ready to sit down.

I believe that last part was what Jon referred to earlier. So, why wasn’t Israel ready to sit down?